To repent for my failure to write a proper review of Under the Dome, I’ve decided to give the good folks who stop by my blog from time to time–all are readers, I’m fairly certain–a firsthand, honest opinion on the merits of Mr. King’s latest release. I’ll be truthful, I was hesitant to drop $10.57 for a 132-pager. Hell, 52 of those pages aren’t even part of the titular novella. In fact, “Blockade Billy” is only 80 pages–modest, to say the least, for a standalone King publication.

But, I slid my card, took this pint-sized hardcover home, and read. I wasn’t disappointed.

King’s a fairly die-hard baseball fan, but you don’t really have to be to enjoy the story of William “Blockade Billy” Blakely. In fact, King is masterful in his balance of true-to-life, baseball-lover geekspeak and everday, plain idiot terminology that even the kid who prefered the sandbox to the softball diamond as a child (yes, that’s me) can easily understand.

The story is told in a conversational style in the first-person in a clever interview-style perspective. The narrator is a former major-leaguer retelling his own account of Blockade Billy’s short-lived baseball career from a nursing home years later, saying things like, “Now, Mr. King, you may already know this, but I’ll try to tell it to you from my perspective…” Of course, I was at first scratching my head at this peculiar narrative style, but was quickly taken by its artistic merits and brilliant storytelling devices.

The start of the story’s telltale King-ness–that is, delightfully unique weirdness–presents the reader with a fairly general idea of what’s going on in the story early on, and while I was able to predict a great deal about the mysterious nature of William Blakely, King manages to surprise even the most alert, King-experienced reader with a fairly brilliant and unique twist at the story’s delicious climax that is quite satisfying.

That said, the real gem of the hardcover is the included bonus short story, “Morality,” in which a dying clergyman makes a strange, sinister request of a desperate, money-hungry woman, who accepts this request in hopes of attaining a better life and future for her and her husband (a writer, but of course that’s no surprise in a piece of King fiction).

The playout of events, the escalation of the page-flipping climax, and the brilliant ending make for a resonant, extremely satisfying read that really outshines the titular novella. This story would definitely have been a terrific inclusion in King’s recent Just After Sunset collection (my favorite King collection, despite what most would say–I thought “N.” was life-changingly brilliant).

It seems that the more King ages, the more brilliant and reflective his fiction becomes. While some claim that he will never write a word to compete with his masterwork The Stand (I myself once held this opinion, actually), I believe that the man still has a great amount of steam left in his ever-evolving, always-impressive muse.

Overall, this tiny hardcover edition of “Blockade Billy” mostly just whetted my appetite for the upcoming release Full Dark, No Stars, a collection of four more novellas. I definitely got my ten bucks worth, if that’s what you really want to know.

Much like its predecessor, Iron Man 2 sets the bar extremely high for summer blockbusters with its early, but timely, release. The movie lives up to the humorous wit of Tony Stark’s character in the first movie, the tasteful but not overdone action sequences, and general good writing and cinematography of the first film.

No one is going to kid themselves that Jon Favreau is some kind of modern-day Sergio Leone. But I’ll be damned if he doesn’t have a profound sense of humanity, humor, grit, and adrenaline–the sort of concoction necessary to direct a groundbreaking blockbuster. He really knows how to capture the essence of the characters from the source material, get the ball rolling, and allow the actors/actresses to truly soar.

Iron Man 2, of course, is at a peculiar disadvantage–while the original blew the walls down with a film that no one seems to have had any real expectations for, good or bad, this film was destined to be huge (i.e. money-making) before a single word was ever scribbled into the first draft of the script. It lives up to the hype, amazingly.

All of the characters, it seems, have grown in a way that seems natural. Robert Downey Jr.’s now-legendary portrayal of Tony Stark in the first film has been extrapolated appropriately to the point that his shameless character has begun to exhibit “textbook narcissism,” essentially portrayed as a god in the public’s eye. Downey Jr. manages to play this part superbly; hell, he probably doesn’t have to try very hard given his own personal “phoenix-from-the-ashes” history. Sherlock Holmes, and more significantly, Iron Man, have effectively turned a once-nearly-bygone career into what has essentially become megastardom. And hell, the guy deserves it. Moreso than any other singular action movie star I can think of. Not since Tom Cruise’s John Anderton in Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002) or Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden in Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) have I seen such a masterfully crafted bad-ass protagonist in a film. Maybe I’m simply forgetting one; it’s certainly possible. But, it’s fair to say that Robert Downey Jr. has struck gold with two very amazing American blockbuster franchises.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s portrayal of Pepper Potts, I felt, could have been fleshed out slightly more–however, that’s an issue with the script, not the actress. She performed her part with the sort of expertise that could only belong to someone with such a long list of credentials as hers. She is never afraid to tell Tony when he’s making a fool of himself, and she exhibits a much stronger sense of integrity and human strength than she did in the first film. And, of course, we are granted a nice sense that her slightly romantic relationship with Tony is healthily progressing towards what I suspect may continue to grow into a full-blown coupling of the pair.

I was, like I’m sure many others were, rather disappointed when I heard initially that Terrence Howard wasn’t going to reprise his role as Lt. Colonel Rhodes (a.k.a. War Machine). However, after seeing Don Cheadle, a much finer actor, in my opinion, take up the helm of the character, I am convinced that he would have been a better casting call from the start. His portrayal is very different from that of Howard’s in the first film, seemingly far less trusting of Stark, and far more complex. The conflict that leads him to don the silver Iron Man suit which is eventually upgraded to become War Machine creates a very nice relationship dynamic between the two armored guardians, and once they begin working together to defeat Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a.k.a. Whiplash, Cheadle’s performance really begins to shine.

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (S.H.I.E.L.D.) is probably the single best casting call of all time. I truly believe that. The scene where he first is seen conversing with Tony in Iron Man 2 seems a slight homage to Pulp Fiction, which serves as a reminder that Jackson is an actor of the highest caliber. He inflects his character with a proper balance of campy comic-book-film humor and stern seriousness. His role is not vital to the story, but picks up nicely from his cameo in the original film and hints at the inevitable Avengers film (which is further reinforced with a nice tie-in post-credits clip which I won’t spoil here).

Scarlett Johansson, a very talented and gorgeous actress of who I am more than a little fond following her work in the science fiction film The Island and the sexy Woody Allen film Match Point, really lets off some sparks in this otherwise unsexualized film. The romance between Stark and Potts is purely light-hearted, whereas the tension he reveals toward Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow is far edgier and erotic. That’s not to say that she’s there purely as a sex object. On the contrary; Favreau seems to play openly with this perception in characters’ interactions with her, allowing her to more effectively show her strengths in surprising and feminism-conscious ways. She is stunning in her scarce action sequences, showing her to be the right choice for the part. The red hair and green eyes really suit her aesthetic for the character. While she isn’t necessarily the most rounded character as of this film, she certainly plays an important and empowering role in the battle against Hammer (Sam Rockwell), Whiplash, and the remote-controlled warrior drones that aid in their plot to defile Stark Industries.

Sam Rockwell, by the way, is a terrific actor who really comes close to outshining Downey Jr. in this film. Not to the same degree that, for instance, Heath Ledger outshone Christian Bale in The Dark Knight, but in that he plays the ultimate rival; he’s somewhat witty, he’s bold, and the audience absolutely wants him to die. Not because he’s “pure evil,” or whatever, but because he embodies all of the human faults which drive corruption, greed, and deception. He is a serpentine asshole, and any harm done to him provides the audience with satisfaction. Which, of course, means Rockwell has served his purpose with utmost excellence as an actor.

Mickey Rourke, of course, is a method actor whose brilliance has, like Downey Jr., fueled a complete revival of a career that had no long ago seemed to have fizzled out. The man clearly got into character as a disgruntled, frighteningly believable, monstrous Russian physicist who has a drawn-out history of misery which he blames entirely on Tony Stark and his father, Howard Stark. The Cold War-era influence of the comic book series has been allowed to creep into this movie through the character of Ivan Vanko/Whiplash in a way that is both appropriately subtle (it 2010, afterall–let dead dogs lie) and a proper tribute to the influences that are at the heart and soul of the Iron Man series’ origin.

The movie isn’t perfect of course, but as summer action blockbusters go, it’s up there with Star Trek (J. J. Abrams, 2009), and beats the somewhat disappointing Transformers sequel (Michael Bay, 2009). My only disappointment was the seemingly short-lived and undeveloped endgame of the film, which shows some fairly decent tying up of ends and makes good use of the War Machine character and the “Drones,” but which seemed to neglect the downfall of the very strongly portrayed character of Rourke’s Whiplash.

If you have the time and the means, get your asses out there and see it. Oh hell, of course you will. Let’s hope the Star Trek sequel lives up to this sort of brilliance.